Emiliano Sala: Two jailed for accessing CCTV footage of footballer’s post-mortem

Pair watched examinations out of ‘morbid curiosity,’ judge says

Two people who illegally accessed CCTV footage of Emiliano Sala’s post-mortem examination have been jailed.

Sherry Bray, a CCTV company director and Christopher Ashford, her employee, accessed mortuary cameras and watched the examination out of “morbid curiosity”, Swindon Crown Court heard.

Mr Sala, a Cardiff City footballer, was travelling on a plane after signing with the club on 21 January when the Piper Malibu craft crashed into the English Channel.

His body was recovered on 6 February after a major rescue operation, though the body of David Ibbotson, the pilot, has still not been found.

A post-mortem examination took place at Bournemouth Borough Mortuary on 7 February.

Bray and Ashford accessed the cameras and took screenshots of the post-mortem examination footage.

These images then spread across Twitter and Instagram. One was seen by Romina Sala, the footballer’s sister, who came across an image on Instagram.

Swindon Crown Court heard Bray was the director of the company which monitored the mortuary’s security cameras.

“There’s a nice one on the table for you to watch when you’re next in,” the 49-year-old said to Ashford in a message, before he started his night shift.

Bray and Ashford watched the clip during separate shifts. Bray then took a photo on her phone and sent it to her daughter on Facebook Messenger.

Ashford showed a friend a screenshot and let the friend photograph the image.

Eventually an image was widely shared on social media.

After realising police were investigating the case, Bray deleted the file from her phone and asked Ashford to do the same.

“I cannot believe there are people so wicked and evil who could do that,” Romina Sala said,in a victim impact statement.

“I’ll never erase those images from my head. My brother and mother can never forget about this. It’s hard for me to live with this image.”

Robert Welling, prosecuting, said Bray and her staff “would watch as and when autopsies were on the mortuary CCTV footage”.

Evidence from the company director’s phone revealed she had also taken a photo of the body of another man.

Bray had previously admitted three counts of computer misuse. She also admitted perverting the course of justice by instructing Ashford to delete his images.

Nicholas Cotter, defending Bray, said: “She fully accepts the distress and upset she’s caused.”

She was jailed for 14 months.

Ashford also pleaded guilty to three counts of computer misuse.

Thomas Horder, defending the 62-year-old, described his actions as the “biggest mistake he has ever made”. He was sentenced to five months in prison.

“So far as culpability is concerned, I accept that neither of you committed the offences you have pleaded guilty to as a consequence of any financial motive, but rather were driven by morbid curiosity and, in your case, Mr Ashford, by your interest in forensic science,” Peter Crabtree, the sentencing judge, said.

“You have both accepted that your deliberate accessing of the computer system, in your case, Ms Bray, to watch the autopsy of Emiliano Sala ‘live’, and in both of your cases to replay the autopsy using the playback facility was, in reality, unauthorised.

“You both well appreciated that there could have been no justification based on any ‘security’ grounds for doing so.

“You have both abused your positions and the access you had in a quite appalling way in watching the autopsies you have, and in taking the photographs and screenshots you did.

“By those actions, you both showed a level of disrespect such that if knowledge of your conduct became public, as it did, it would cause considerable harm, and risk wider promulgation of any photograph you had taken.”

The judge added that the pair had shown the “greatest of disrespect” to Mr Sala‘s family and caused them “considerable distress”.

“We welcome today’s sentence and believe it reflects the gravity of the crimes and the great distress caused to the families involved,” Detective Inspector Gemma Vinton, of Wiltshire Police, said.

In August investigators revealed Mr Sala had been exposed to harmful levels of carbon monoxide before his death.

Additional reporting by Press Association